


I watched her face to see which way

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Romance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8117272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: There were only three guests at the wedding, no cake or punch, not one orange blossom.





	

It was the most romantic wedding Emma Green had ever witnessed. She had not been allowed to attend, though Mary had asked her, very cautiously and with all the formality of an engraved invitation, the calligraphied loops of her title transmuted into her tone, the way she lowered her eyes, had her skirts carefully arranged and her cuffs freshly laundered, as white as she could get them. Emma had known it was an unusual invitation, but she had not anticipated the degree of her mother’s disdain and irritation when she had hesitantly inquired, “A Yankee wedding, Emma? Between an officer and a nurse? I can’t think you’d ever be able to show your face in proper society again. To think you’d even wish to attend, you, Emma Catherine Green of Alexandria! It’s bad enough you work at that hospital, but at least you are only tending our Confederate patriots in their hour of need.” Emma forbore to tell her mother what else she might do at Mansion House, how she would bring a cup of water to a Union soldier or aid the nuns, how she listened to Henry, Mr. Hopkins, ministering to the boys. And lately, how she had been watching over Alice, more and more concerned about what her younger sister meant to do, how far she had wandered from her dollhouse and ribbons.

Emma had learned when she was seven years old that there was a place in the long main hallway of Mansion House where you might stand and if you stood very still, peer into the library, unobserved. It had been the sanctuary of travelling gentlemen, all books and pipe-smoke, the colors dull, broadcloth, tweed, leather, there were bluff exclamations and the occasional slurring of a man who had overindulged in Father’s fine brandy. There had been little choice left for the ceremony, as the large parlors had been wards since Mansion House was commandeered, the smaller sitting room was the officers’ dining room and Emma didn’t wonder that Mary had not wanted to be married standing beside the table where the officers ate mutton hash and boiled turnips night after night, where Nurse Hastings’s sharp criticisms had imbued this chair, that curtain, every meal; her dissatisfaction trailed behind her like the bridal veil Mary did not have. Samuel Diggs and little Isaac Watts, familiar to Emma from Belinda’s kitchen where her mammy plied the boy with biscuit before sending him on errands, had done their very best to make the library festive. There was a little garland of greens on the mantle with a few ivory tapers Matron had offered before she could be asked, the furniture had been dusted and the tables polished with some salvaged linseed oil. Isaac had seemed quite happy one afternoon in the garden, beating the living daylights out of the Turkey carpet that covered much of the scarred and scratched floor, and though it was worn, once cleaned, the colors still glowed like jewels, ruby and garnet, topaz and a very dark emerald green, sinuously threaded through like a vine or a jungle serpent.

Emma had been proud of herself for not feeling jealous of Mary’s good fortune at marrying during the War; at fifteen, she would have choked on it, to envision herself nineteen, nearly twenty, unmarried and not even engaged, giving place to another, older woman, a Yankee widow ordinarily beneath her notice. She had been ashamed of her pride when Mary shyly showed her the dress she meant to marry in, black bombazine with very wide skirts, a mourning gown in the style of several seasons ago “it’s the finest one I have… the only one I could wear.” Emma gathered she should not ask what happened to the hydrangea blue silk ball gown Mary had worn to the ball the Greens’s had hosted; it would have required some refurbishing, but nothing that would need a seamstress, nothing beyond Mary’s own abilities. Mary must have a good reason not to wear it and go to her wedding to Jedediah Foster clad in the dress she’d had made for her dead Baron but Emma couldn’t imagine it and she couldn’t imagine being happy to present herself to her bridegroom in yards and yards of deepest black, only a white lace collar and cuffs to brighten it, but Mary was, if her smile and flushed cheeks told the truth. There were not even flowers at hand; they were too close to winter for the garden to yield a charming nosegay, so Mary would carry her prayer book, the most solemn, subdued bride Emma could remember. She had wished she could offer something to Mary, some bit of finery, a rosy sash or embroidered shawl, but she knew that would be forbidden as her attendance at the wedding itself. She had admired the dress as best she could and suggested “Dr. Foster will only have eyes for you, Nurse Mary, no matter what you wear—the nun’s habit would be the same to him as-- as a concubine’s gauzy trousers in the Turk’s seraglio!” Mary had laughed aloud and Emma had blushed to have said something so bold, even if only to the woman she was not allowed to call her friend, and she blushed because she knew it was the truth, having seen and heard Dr. Foster for months now.

She discovered that none of it had made any difference, none of the trappings she had spent her girlhood devoted to imagining, refining within her mind how the French lace would drape around a bared shoulder, whether curls would be more elegant than a braided chignon in a silk net, orange blossom or dozens of rosebuds, yards of ribbon twilled and furled, pews filled with family, friends, every neighbor appreciating the beauty and elegance of the scene. Mary had no one from her family to stand beside her, no relation perched in an uncomfortable chair, and Samuel Diggs and Charlotte Jenkins, both dear to her Emma knew, were not present either. Mary stood next to Dr. Foster, all those yards of bombazine gleaming, with Captain McBurney, Dr. Hale, and gouty Dr. Summers her only guests and witnesses alike. The men wore their dress uniforms and had polished their buttons and boots but it was nothing to the radiant light in Mary’s face, the glowing reflection in Dr. Foster’s eyes. Emma thought she had never been at a wedding where the bride and groom were so obviously, deeply, seriously in love, where there was no apprehension or uneasiness, only a most beautiful, delighted joy in union. Henry Hopkins, despite his lack of experience, was confidently leading the ceremony and Emma thought, this, all this was Grace, what her minister Reverend Carter had spoken of and that she had never grasped before. Dr. Foster kissed his wife very carefully, delicately even, but Emma had the sense that he was exercising great restraint, in and of itself a surprise for that volatile, impetuous man, so used to his brilliance being the excuse for his transgressions. He would do nothing wrong today, she felt sure, though she thought nothing he could do would seem wrong to Mary Foster. Emma wanted to look away and to continue to regard them, curious about this glimpse at their intimacy, embarrassed that she should be transfixed and yearning in response. She had thought she was hidden by the doorway but that moment of realization, of her own longing, was when Henry’s eyes found her and she could not make out what his expression meant, except that he did not find her wanting in any way. He tilted his head, just a little, as if to invite her in but did not do anything more when she had to shake her head, the smallest _no_ , and stepped back, smoothing her own flowered silk skirt to make its rustling silent.

She wished she might greet Mary with her new name, to clasp her hand and wish her well; she wished she might call on her in the house Mary and Dr. Foster had leased, Mrs. Jackson’s old place on Duke Street, but none of it was permitted. She would have to pray for her friend and hope the letter Belinda had helped her send with Isaac’s help would let Mary know how she felt, how she would like things to be different. She trusted that though her mother would not allow her to visit Mary, Mary Foster, the Executive Officer’s wife, might find her own way to Emma, just as she had made her way to Mansion House despite so many difficulties, how she had managed the travails before her marriage. The new Mrs. Jedediah Foster was a woman who could not be fully anticipated and since meeting her, Emma had happily discovered she herself was similar. For she had not thought of Frank Stringfellow once during the ceremony, only the bride’s dark eyes and the way her husband tenderly held her hand and would not let it go, only the way Henry Hopkins looked, like the archangel Michael so tall and splendid, somehow all wisdom and benevolence when he laid his hands upon Mary and Dr. Foster’s heads in a final blessing, her friend Henry, the Yankee chaplain who thought she could not see anything in his eyes. She could see what was needed and what was wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel of sorts to "Each Life Converges to some Centre," allowing us a glimpse of Mary's wedding. It can be read as a standalone as well. Duke Street is a real street in Alexandria but Isaac Watts is my own creation and the black bombazine is a call-back to that first chapter of "Gone With the Wind" when Scarlett surveys her wardrobe before the picnic at the Wilkes's plantation.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
